


Convictions

by OuyangDan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OuyangDan/pseuds/OuyangDan
Summary: A gift fic I wrote for a friend at Warden's Vigil for our Secret Santa exchange this year. First fic I've completed in some time, and three characters I've not written before. Enjoy!





	Convictions

The barren nature of the cell gave his many overlapping thoughts room to stretch out, their legs remembering what it felt like to be able to run free.

Loghain did not like it.

The thoughts crowded him, keeping stride along the track he paced tirelessly with bloodshot eyes and his hands wringing. A funny thing, time, his days marked and yet he found himself with nothing except time to reflect. On his life. His deeds. His intentions. While he combed through every action he’d taken that led him to this tower, encased by the worn and ancient stones of Fort Drakon, he found comfort in knowing he held no regrets, the complete conviction that were he given a chance, he would change nothing. No, Loghain Mac Tir knew he would do it all again. 

The clang of the locks indicated the opening of the enormous doors to the outer chamber. The sound did not pull his attention away from the glitter of dust floating on the sunlight, ignorant of the realities of the world.

“Teyrn Loghain, a visitor.”

That did. He turned to see the whelp, either clean shaven or not yet old enough to shave, tasked with his security today. The man had the definite appearance of one who wanted to piss their pants in terror at just the sight of the general.

“It’s just Loghain now, I believe,” he corrected. “To my understanding, those committing treason do not get to hold titles.”

He turned then, his eyes settling upon the visitor, clad in her armor and her sword slung as if she were ready for inspection.

“Ah! The Betrayer! Come to bask in a job well done, have you?”

Years in his service, and years protecting Cailan from his own foolishness, left Cauthrien skilled at keeping her true feelings to herself. Were he anyone else, the cold of her blue-grey eyes might not have seemed out of place. She jerked her chin at the young guard whose face immediately crumpled with relief as he fled the room. She gave no indication that she acknowledged Loghain’s greeting.

“I came to see how you’re doing.” She bit back the word ‘sir’, just barely, but enough for him to recognize the slip.

“Come to see how I’m doing?” he echoed as he turned to face her full on now, abandoning his pacing. “Well, let’s assess the situation shall we? For old times sake.”

Her face remained impassive. He’d always found that an admirable quality in her.

“I get to watch the country I’ve spent my life defending torn apart, the enemy I fought back welcomed in with open arms, and my most trusted turn coward against me when I counted on her the most.” He nodded his head in her direction. “Does that sum it up?”

She twitched to move forward, but held her ground. A good soldier. A faithful knight. Utterly loyal and trusted without hesitation. He turned about, facing his shoulder to her, less imposing when not in his marred but maintained trademark armor. He walked tall, his head bobbing in the same manner it did when he addressed his soldiers. “You were like a daughter to me,” he added, his voice heavy with a father’s disappointment.

Now she advanced, her eyes going from ice cold to white hot. Loghain ceased his steps and faced her as she stopped just beyond an arm’s reach. So, her faith in him was truly gone, then.

“And what of your actual daughter?” she demanded. Her words sliced the air, held taut by her even tone, and his pride warred with his disdain. He did not brook traitors. Now look at where they were? “Did you even consider her when you gave me that order?”

“I considered what I always have: the good of all of Ferelden. You more than anyone should understand that is not always easy.”

“Especially if you don’t have to dirty your own hands.” He let a silent sigh as she turned on her heel and retreated. “You may have given the order,” she huffed as she turned abruptly, “but you put my face on the betrayal.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I admired you. You gave me what no one else had, raised me up, taught me well. All of it part of a man I was proud to serve. But you’ve let me down.”

“And you, me.” He would not be questioned. Not by her. Not by anyone. He’d done what was best in a dire situation. It was unfortunate, but unavoidable. “I trusted you to carry out orders.”

She marched forward, finger jabbing in the air. “And I trusted you to only give me orders that wouldn’t undo every damned thing I worked hard to have.”

###

The iron bars were as capable of holding in his aggravation as they did him. The crowded feeling surrounded him on all sides once more, taking most of the air in the room. It carried a presence; another being personifying the urgency he felt which tossed him back and forth. Things were wrong. The whole of the kingdom was wrong, and now it was headed down a dark path from which it might never be able to return. 

And here he was, Hero of River Dane, shunted away, forced to allow a spoiled upstart and a far too lucky bastard who were too stupid to die lead the defense.

Oh, certainly, the Maker had a sense of humor. No sooner had the boy crossed his mind than the heavy door swung wide, admitting first two guards, followed by Maric’s would-be son, and two more guards.

“Ah! The whelp! I suppose I should be flattered that the King of Ferelden would deign to visit me. And under armed guard, no less.”

With so many guards, he wondered how quickly his daughter would be shuffled aside as well.

“I assure you, there is no thought of you in it.” Oh, Loghain very much doubted that.

“Then to what do I owe this honor? Come to finally look me in the eyes, have you?”

The boy’s eyes narrowed, an expression he’d seen so many times in his many years now set in the face of a pretender. Loghain knew Maric, better than anyone. Alistair was no Maric. He was not even worthy to be a son of Maric. His very existence sullied the Theirin name.

“Yes, actually.” He looked to the guards who’d accompanied him, shuffling his weight from foot to foot as he made a laughable effort at commanding them. “You can… go. I think. If you don’t mind.”

Dutifully, they took their leave, knowing enough to murmur respect even if they did not wear it. Loghain stared on, unrelenting in his expression. This was the supposed man who’d brought him down in a duel? He let a derisive huff. Better to be executed than to see what his so-called reign would usher in.

“So, now it’s just us. Man to man. Is that how you see it?”

“Is there some other way I should see it?”

A bitter laugh erupted from Loghain’s throat. “I knew Maric,” he repeated out loud this time. 

“That’s right, you did,” the boy said, cutting him off from his thought. He stepped forward, apparently emboldened by the safety of the bars between them with what Loghain was sure had been intended as a menacing posture. But posturing was all it was. Loghain was already sentenced to execution. This whelp had no power over him. “Which is something I can never claim. I never had a family, not until the Wardens. It wasn’t enough that I never had a father or a brother, but you took them from me, too?”

“You were never supposed to even be.”

Nothing in Alistair’s expression shifted. No, he was not skilled at hiding his feelings, the contempt on his face making that clear, so the barb must have missed its intended mark. 

“You don’t actually believe you’re the first to say that to me, do you?” the boy laughed. Oh, but there was nothing funny in his tone. 

Loghain had no dignified response, and merely sneered.

“You took everything,” Alistair repeated, hazel eyes focused on him as if they could knock him dead by intensity of his stare. “Because of your arrogance! Because of your pride! Because of your paranoia!” Each statement finished with a staccato clip. 

“Do you think Cailan didn’t know about you?”

That one struck true.

“Of course he did,” the boy relented, the wind leaving him and his shoulders slumping. “Everyone knew. No one cared.”

Oh, Loghain knew better. How Maric, foolish as he was, longed to be a father to this boy. More, it seemed, than he ever desired to be one to Cailan. It was a disgrace. And unforgivable disrespect of Rowan, and all she gave for Ferelden. For Maric.

He shook his head dismissively as he turned his back on the boy, a show of his actual care. “You were a mistake. An embarrassment. To acknowledge you would have brought shame to the Crown. A goal you seem determined to meet, still.” Maric often let his idealism get in the way of his good sense. He’d watched as Cailan headed that way, determined to take Loghain’s own daughter with him. “You should have died with the others.”

A tendon clenched in the whelp’s jaw. “You took something else from me, too.”

“Oh, do enlighten me. I am so without entertainment, here in my tower.”

“You,” Alistair spat.

Caught by surprise, Loghain turned and lifted his gaze to regard the boy.

“You’re the closest link I had. I could have known them through you. I could have learned from you.” He lifted and dropped his hands, helpless and desperately grasping for manhood. “Now I’ll have to know them through Anora, and you’ll just be another lost father figure.”

###

Loghain did not sleep. To what end? His execution came at dawn. Would the boy dirty his own royal hands in taking his head, or would he indulge in his new power and order it done by another?

He sat upon the stale ticking of the bent and rusted cot frame. His shoulders rounded as he slumped forward, head hanging loosely. The Grand Cleric, for all she was worth, suggested he take this time to reflect. To make peace with the Maker. Again, to what end? There would be no forgiveness, and he was not sorry.

“Father?”

Anora had never been a timid or shy child. For all she reminded him daily of Celia, beautiful and kind Celia, he never failed to recognize his own conviction in the eyes of hers which matched his own. No timidity existed now as she strode in. Tall and regal as always, everything about her showing her for the true Queen she was born to be. Still, when he looked upon her, he thought only of the first time he’d laid eyes upon her, still covered in birth and squalling at her mother’s breast.

He rose from his seat now. If this were the last she’d see of him, then he would be worth remembering. His chin lifted, his pride not damaged for his time imprisoned, and the imperiousness on his face matching that of his little girl’s.

“Anora.”

“I needed to see you, once more. Before…” She wound her fingers together in front of her, a nervous habit all her years at Court had not disabused her of. 

“I am glad you did.”

She held up a hand to silence him, a gesture at odds with the moment. Or, so he thought. “I wanted to give you one last chance, in case you had something you wished to say now, to me, in your final hours.”

Of course he did. He had so many things. A father never ran out of things he needed or wanted to say to his daughter. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“You could start with ‘Anora, I’m sorry’.”

That was… not what he’d expected. His brows lifted high on his forehead. “And what am I to be sorry for?”

“Now it is I who does not know where to begin.” He opened his mouth to speak, only to be dismissed by another lift of her hand as she turned and began to pace. No, not pace. Pacing implied there was no purpose or direction. She walked away from him, keeping her face in his view but not looking at him. 

She turned on a heel to face him now, staring from the corner of the walls of bars where he had no place to which he could retreat. “You took Cailan from me.”

“Cailan’s death was his own doing.”

“Do you expect me to accept that? Perhaps that is what you need to believe in order to clear your conscience.” She circled back around the cell, never dropping her gaze from his. “How could you do that to me?”

“Everything I did, I did for Ferelden. For you.”

Her hand lifted once more, this time her eyes closing with smooth lids. “Really?” Her lids rose and she stopped walking. The proud gleam in her eyes he was so used to seeing vanished, and she looked at him as if she only saw him for the first time.

“Always. You know that.”

“What I know is you took my husband and dearest friend from me. You threw a kingdom I worked to better into turmoil, and have allowed us to fight ourselves instead of facing the real danger of the darkspawn.”

“Anora,” he started, his tone sharp.

She cut back, her tongue more keen. “You named yourself regent, even as I remained to hold the throne.”

“I’m your father.”

“And I am Queen, and have been these five years. A grown woman. A capable one because that’s who you raised me to be. It’s a pity that it’s come to this for you to see that.” She tilted her head, a tinge of pain pulling her mouth into a sad frown. “But you still don’t, do you?”

Loghain let out a hard breath, audible in the stillness. “Of course I do.”

“And that’s why you failed to come to me with your worries?” she asked, her brows knitting together. “Failed to allow me to continue doing what is best for my country? Failed me?”

“You needed my help.”

She took three steps towards him, in rhythm with her words. “I needed your faith in me. Not your sneaking or lies or betrayal. You’ve cost me everything most dear to me, including you.”

Loghain shook his head, a hard motion meant to shake off the crack he felt in his resolve. “I did all of this for you.”

“You did it for the little girl in pigtails you still see when you look at me.”

His head dropped, eyes falling away until he saw only her feet. “A daughter is always a little girl in her father’s eyes.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way.” Her hands folded in front of her once more, but this time there was no twisting or wringing. No nervous habit. Composure and coolness reigned in her now. “And I’m sorry it ends like this.”

He gripped the bars with both hands, the sheer force of his will still insufficient to break him through so he might reach her. To embrace her once more. “Anora, I love you.”

Her head shook, only the slightest motion, her eyes boring into him. “And yet, even as I am left with little choice but to wed another man, you cannot say you’re sorry.”

His hands dropped from the bars and his shoulders rolled straight once more. “I will not cower, and I will not lie. Not to you.”

A single nod of her head, and she turned her back to him, walking away. “I hope that brings you peace, father.”


End file.
